Archive

Most of us have a subtle, almost subconscious, awareness that the dollar is vulnerable to a currency crisis. Why? Because we realize that our US$4.8 trillion national debt is growing, due to our yearly deficits that have been running in the hundreds of billions. What has kept our dollar strong so fa...

Choosing an e-commerce software system from among the wide variety of vendor offerings available in today's marketplace can be tricky. Once you've settled on a particular application, application package or enterprise system, choosing the form and function that best suits your business needs and org...

In a possible prelude to widespread Internet video offerings, Yahoo has revamped its online video site, creating television-like channels and offering users the chance to publish their own video where it can potentially be seen by millions. Focused for now on enabling viral video to be widely seen, ...

After four straight years of declining revenue, Sun Microsystems said Wednesday it plans to cut 4,000 to 5,000 jobs in the next six months. The layoffs are part of a series of cost-cutting measures the company's board of directors approved to stimulate growth and a return to consistent profitability...

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the search company has no plans to develop its own browser, squelching long-simmering rumors that it would develop an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer but stopping short of ruling it out entirely. Speaking during a Webcast update with analysts on Wednesday, S...

E-commerce is alive and well. Holiday shopping sales were through the virtual roof last season and analysts predict continued growth in the online channel in 2006. There's only one problem: Security threats seem to be rising almost as quickly as e-shopping revenues. From phishing to pharming to hack...

Microsoft is considering making a bid to buy eBay, according to a published report, a move that could dramatically alter an e-commerce, Web portal and search space already in a state of flux. The New York Post was the first to report that Microsoft had held talks about a possible merger but that ant...

To many telecommunications customers, the Universal Service Fund, or USF, is one of several hidden costs of making long-distance phone calls. It is one of a handful of government fees that appear on each month's phone bill. Currently, customers pay a monthly USF charge based on how much they spend ...

Hoping to connect advertisers with a key youth demographic and pave the way for broader use of mobile marketing, Virgin Mobile USA on Tuesday said it would debut a program that lets pay-as-you-go members earn minutes by watching ads. Virgin says its SugarMama service will be a way for users to earn ...

Europe's highest court ruled Tuesday that an agreement calling for wholesale transfer of personal data on airline passengers to the United States is illegal, a ruling that emphasizes the shifting legal and moral framework for storing and sharing personal information. The European Court of Justice, w...

Consumers are saying that mobile music services are exceptionally overpriced -- at least 85 percent higher than they actually feel comfortable paying. A new research report by Strategy Analytics, entitled, "Mobile Music USA: Sprint Service Preferred to VCast But Price Premiums Too High on Both," ind...

Advertisers have been skeptical for years about the pay-per-click online marketing model. Finally, there may be a model that advertisers like -- one that is decidedly offline, however. It's called pay-per-call. Consumers are starting to get used to the technology as a way to obtain answers to questi...

Europe's longest-running show moved to the Court of First Instance in Brussels last month. The Court heard Microsoft's appeal of the EC's antitrust judgment against it. The questioning from judges raised serious doubts about the legitimacy of Europe's order to artificially separate out the Explore...

Hollywood's movie studios and major television networks filed a lawsuit this week claiming copyright violations from Cablevision's planned remote-storage digital video recorder service, demanding an injunction to ban the service. Cablevision's plans, announced in March, are to store content aired on...

The U.S. Treasury said Thursday it will stop collecting a 108-year-old telecommunications tax assessed to support the brief Spanish-American War and offer tax refunds for the past three years. The 3 percent federal excise tax applied to all long-distance calls since 1898, when it was put in place at...